His Girl: Yolanda
by Pixie Angel
Summary: The Pilots are sent off to different parts of the world and to different colony's, given new identities to keep them safe. But one pilots harrowing love-life interfers with his emotions when the time comes to return to war.


"Ok class, just add mixture A -that's the bubbly pink stuff for those of you too stupid to remember- to beaker C -that's the beaker- and stir in one small measurement of your accumulated powder. If done right, this should result in a small poofy noise, exactly of the sort heard in inane cartoons and silly little TV shows about magic and witches. Now you nitwits. If I can turn your attention to the board once you have done this." the balding middle aged man carried on talking, seemingly unaware of the fact that not a single person in the room still actually cared about what he was saying.  
  
"God. nothing like a bit of resentment first thing in the morning to wake you up, hmm? Why didn't he join the bloody army and get blown up somewhere else?" she laughed and tried to stop mixture A overflowing out of her test tube. "Can you tuck my hair behind my ears please? It keeps going into my eyes."  
  
"God, if you're going to cut your hair into an impossibly floppy style at least get proper accessories to keep it out of your face."  
  
"Stefan, stop bullshitting and just help me will you?" Yolanda blushed and bent her knees forward so that she could hold up her beaker and try to measure the ominously puke-green mixture with her eyes. She had only just got her haircut recently and was still a bit nervous about the dramatic change. Whereas before it had been long straight and smooth, reaching down to the small of her back like a curtain, now it was shorter, bouncier and lighter. It floated around her shoulders and the bits at the front hung over her face, gently slanting downwards and towards the right. She had been advised by the girls in her dorm that wearing a left side parting was a definite must.  
  
"Ok, fine" he grumbled, putting down his own beaker and standing to her left while she turned around to face him. He gave a tiny, inaudible sigh; he always did when they faced each other. Before her hair had made her look rather plain, but now it rounded off her face and somehow made it looks slightly more glowing, healthier. He took her long fringe in his fingers, making sure that their tips just barely brushed her smooth pink cheeks. She still wasn't really looking at him, too preoccupied with her quickly failing experiment. He tucked her hair behind her ears and ran his finger gently along her jawline. She looked up at him when she noticed the contact and smiled. A warm, friendly smile, but not one filled with passion and excitement, which was all he wanted from her. He looked away, took a deep shuddering breath and ran a hand through his own hair. It was slightly longer than most boys' style, kind of flicked up, but for some reason it drove girls wild. Not 'Landa though. She thought it was impossibly moronic and pointed this out to him at least once a day.  
  
A shrill bell interrupted his thoughts and he glanced up at the ceiling. As he thought, chairs could be heard scraping across the floor above, and the class didn't even wait for their teacher to stop talking before they threw the remaining dregs of the experiment into the special sinks and threw their books and stationary into their bags.  
  
"So," Yolanda said, once they had left the building and were walking through the open corridors. "What're you doing for lunch? Cos if you don't mind, I'd kind of counted on your lunch pass getting me down to the village so I can buy some stuff."  
  
"Yeah, sure." Stefan had told some friends he'd meet them, but he wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to be alone with Yolanda.  
  
She grabbed his shirtsleeve and pulled him towards the entrance to the school, then tapped her feet impatiently while he looked for his pass in his bag. Once he had had it stamped and signed out; they ran towards the gates and set out down the quiet road towards the village.  
  
At St Melbourne College, the specialised secondary school for the sons and daughters of people who lived on St Melbourne Island, St Melbourne colony, only 5 people out of every class of twenty-five had lunch passes. If you wanted to go out of school, into the only village, to shop or buy lunch, you needed to find a 'pass prefect' and persuade them to go out with you. This meant that pass prefects were pretty popular, but usually of the boring responsible type.  
  
Stefan and Yolanda were an unlikely pair. Tall and dark with brooding looks but light blue, clear, shallow eyes, Stefan was quiet and responsible, painfully shy most of the time, and passionate about his interests. Yolanda was short, with blonde hair that was naturally curly and bright green eyes. She only reached up to Stefan's chin, and her petite frame made her look likely to blow away.  
  
Stefan and Yolanda had first met when he had happened upon her in the hallway after school one Friday. They were in the fifth year and the 15 year old Yolanda had been surrounded by older children, engaged in a heated debate with someone at least two years older than her. A small crowd was gathering around the group and Stefan joined the congregation in the way that humans tend to do when they sense disruption and trouble brewing.  
  
"I didn't say anything! I swear I didn't!" the girl's face was flushed and her brow was furrowed. Her black tie was hanging askew and someone had apparently pulled her somewhere by her school jumper. There was a stretched grab mark and he neck was hanging lower than normal.  
  
"Look," said one fourth year, apparently trying to reason between Yolanda and the seventh year "just apologise and he'll leave you alone. It's just a matter of respect. Just apologise."  
  
"No! I won't apologise for something I haven't done! I wont. I don't see the point and I just will not do it." Yolanda's cheeks flushed and tears pricked eyes that sparkled with frustrated fury.  
  
"What's going on?" Stefan had asked a girl in his year that had been there when he arrived.  
  
"That girl there, yeah, her, she's in our year. Apparently she cheeked one of the guys around the corner and now she won't apologise. Of course, everyone knows she didn't. Everyone knows that they just like on pick on girls, disgusting chauvinist morons. But that doesn't matter. No one is going to stand up for her, and she's probably going to come out of this really bad." the girl dropped her voice and turned to Stefan, indicating that he should bow so she could whisper in his ear. "You see the guy with the dark hair? One of my friends ran into him in the hallway by accident. She ran away before he could grab her, but he caught up with her that night." The girl's eye widened with silent fear and knowing. She moved away from Stefan and turned to watch the scuffle again. He just heard her mutter under her breath "she doesn't live here anymore."  
  
Stefan bit his lip and looked over the heads of the collective of students. His height gave him and advantage. So far it didn't look good for the girl. Taking a deep breath he turned sideways slightly and pushed through the crowd.  
  
"Hey, hey!" he put his hand firmly around the girls arm and pulled her slightly towards him. "Where've you been? I've been looking everywhere for you. You'd better hurry. Miss Peters is going to start looking for you if we take much longer. Oh, there she is now!" the seventh years turned to see if he was telling the truth and Stefan grabbed Yolanda's other arm and practically picking her up, ran around the nearest corner, trying to distance himself from the shouts coming from the corridor by ducking into a fire escape staircase and ducking out of sight behind a fire cabinet.  
  
"Hey, shhhhhh." He whispered, holding his hand over her mouth while someone moved past the glass door, banging on the glass and making it shake violently. When the shadows had passed by he removed his hand.  
  
"Hi. I'm Stefan. Are you ok?"  
  
"Jesus fucking Christ." She panted, wild eyes looking around the gloom. "Who are you? No, no, I know you're Stefan," she waved him aside when he opened his mouth to repeat himself. "But I mean. who are you? You just came out of nowhere like WOAH! I mean, thanks, but you scared the shit out of me. I'm Yolanda. God... I'm sorry you have to see me like this." She blushed, brushing her skirt down and pulling her socks over her knees. She dismissed the jumper as hopeless and pulled it off, smoothing her hair down and pulling her white blouse out of her skirt band. "I'm Yolanda by the way. Nice to meet you, thank you for saving me."  
  
"Wow. you talk really fast." He crouch walked over to the door, peeping through the glass, but quickly shuffling back to his former position as someone's legs came into view. "Crap. how do we get out of here? It seemed like a good idea at the time, but if we're trapped here.I'm new to this school and I really don't want to get in trouble already." he sighed nervously and ran his hand through his hair.  
  
"God, take a chill pill Stefano. follow me." She got up and flounced down the nearest flight of stairs, taking a sharp left at the bottom and into a narrower, darker corridor. She opened another door and ran quickly down a pitch-black staircase. Normally he would've never done something like this, but Stefan was already taken with the young girl who seemed so much more than met the eye, and was hopeless to resist following her confident smile.  
  
He reached the bottom and looked around, shivering in the dank darkness, when he felt something touch his arm. He breathed in sharply before feeling Yolanda's fingers close around his arm. She led him through the dark and through another door. She closed it and he heard her scratch the wall before a light flared to life from the ceiling. They were in a room about ten-foot square, covered with a soft black carpet and a huge beanbag sofa in one corner. A small stereo system occupied the opposite corner and a pile of cassettes lay strewn across the carpet.  
  
"Where are we?"  
  
Yolanda skidded across the carpet and began selecting a cassette from the pile. "My uncle worked here until about four years ago, and when my brother came to this school my uncle told him about this room. As far as the school knows, it's storage, but my uncle managed to clear all the crap out and gave it to my brother as a private room. Only people that my brother or I have brought down know about it." she seemed to find a cassette she liked and slotted it in while her feet moved to remove their shoes. Radiohead's 'Creep' drifted through the room, and Yolanda turned to face the bewildered Stefan, her blonde curls framing a impish face filled with mischief. When she reached him she put her arms around his neck, and he turned to face her, his cheeks aflame and his eyes wide.  
  
"Woah! Hey! Jeez. We just met... what're you doing?" he unhooked her hands and placed them by her side, pinning them there.  
  
"Hey," she pouted, put off by his lack of co-operation. "I'm just showing a little appreciation. But if you're not interested." she trailed off, then turned around and selected another cassette from the pile. Radiohead was rather rudely cut short, and instead a bouncier, faster and more upbeat tune bounced around the walls. Yolanda twirled around and ripped off her tie; throwing it into a corner and wondering over to a white box about two feet high. She opened it and revealed what was actually a fridge.  
  
"Cool, you have everything except TV in here."  
  
"Yeah well, usually I don't need a TV to entertain the people I bring down." She said, a hint of sourness in her voice. She pulled out two cans of coke and a jar of salsa, grabbing a bag of tortilla chips from the vegetable bin. She threw him one of the cans and tossed him the dip so she could rip open the bag. Throwing herself down on the beanbag, she crunched through three chips before remembering Stefan and offering him the bag. They had spent the whole afternoon in that little room, getting to know each other, and they had left good friends.  
  
Yolanda lived with her relatives on the island, and had moved to St Melbourne's from the mainland when she was 7. Her father was a soldier who had died defending a distant colony. Her mother had also gone to war after that, leaving Yolanda and her two older brothers at her grandmother's house when she was very young, and when her grandmother had died they had been moved to her aunt's house. She found island life stuffy and claustrophobic, longed for the freedom of the mainland, where you didn't know everyone by name. She longed for anonymity, the ability to walk around without once seeing someone she knew. She longed to be able to look in any direction and not see the sea behind her. She was promiscuous; she admitted she liked to have fun and didn't see the point in 'saving yourself'. She hadn't yet slept with anyone, but that was simply because the island boys knew it would eventually get back to their parents. It couldn't help but get back around. She wanted to sleep her way off the island, maybe get a few friends who could help her raise the money to move somewhere else.  
  
Stefan lived with his parents and his dog on one of the most exclusive estates on the island. His family owned a large section of the fertile farmland and at least one of its major factories. Her father had earned money through business ventures and moved his family to the island just a few months before Stefan was born. His mother had money of her own, her father was the head of an organisation, although Stefan blushed when Yolanda probed further and refused to say anything else on the subject of his grandfather's nobility. His parents were the typical rich snobs, they had no time for Stefan, and had loved the idea of boarding school for their son because it meant that they could spend most of their time going to social gathering on the mainland. They bought him pet after pet, thinking that this would make up for their lack of affection. He had everything he ever wanted, and wasn't particularly fond of his parents anyway, so he didn't exactly resent their lack of enthusiasm for parenthood. His mother had had a child because it was fashionable in her circle; all the old girls at the country club had been doing it. So Stefan had hopes for the future. Get some money off his dad, move off the island and off the colony, get a small piece of land for himself, maybe even on earth, and build the house of his dreams. He loved to design buildings, and had already designed the house he would live in in his later years.  
  
"So, can you just not wait till you can leave this crappy island?" Yolanda was standing on the side of the road, at the top of the cliff, looking out across the sea at the next island, and just past that, at the mainland. If they looked straight upwards, they could just see through the colony shell. "Wont it just be too, too fantastic when we leave?"  
  
"I dunno 'Lands. I kind of like this crappy old island." He shoved his hand further into his pockets and squinted in the sunlight, kicking a sand-rock and carrying on walking. "Come on."  
  
"Yeah yeah... we all know about your romantic idea's of settling down and having a little nest of your own." She took one last look out across the sea and ran to catch up with him, looping her arm through his, sliding her hand into his pocket to catch hold of his fingers. He blushed slightly and hitched his school bag onto his shoulder again with the other hand.  
  
"Yolanda." he started, rubbing her fingers slightly in his, taking a deep breath and turning to look at her.  
  
"Oh god, no, please! Not today Stef. Please just not today?" she took her hand back and folded her arms, stalking faster down the road to get away form him.  
  
"What? What'd I say?" he ran forward and grabbed her by the elbow, spinning her around. Her short pleated skirt spun in a circle, and her tie whipped around and over her shoulder.  
  
"I know what that 'Yolanda...' means. I know what you're about to say, and I don't want to hear it. I don't want to discuss it. No! Not today!" she pulled away and carried on, her bag slipping off her shoulder and pulling her arm down.  
  
"Come one! Please? You've never answered me." He stopped in the middle of the road, waiting for her to turn around. She stopped to, with her back to him.  
  
"Listen stef, I love you loads, like, a stupendous amount." Here she turned and squinted her eyes against the sun, putting her hand up like a visor. "Don't be hard on me. Please? I love you to squillion infinities. But you're my best friend. Nothing else. I can't be serious with you. We want different things in life. I want to go away, get off this island, marry someone famous and rich and interesting. You want to stay and settle down."  
  
"Marry me then." He blurted it out, his eyes roaming from side to side anxiously as he moved forward towards her. "Marry me and at the end of the year, we'll graduate form this horrible place and go somewhere else."  
  
"Oh god." She rolled her eyes and turned around, carrying on her walk towards the village, which was just in sight by now. He waited until they reached the bottom of the road and were walking down the highstreet to continue the discussion.  
  
"I'm serious. Marry me. We can go anywhere you like. I can sell my designs and blueprints, make a name for myself, design buildings for famous people and we can be rich and live in the house of your dreams!"  
  
"Stef, come on. Think seriously. You don't want to marry me. You want to marry the Lucia's and the Amanda's and the Rachel's. The Elizabeth's and the Mary's." she turned and prodded him in the shoulder. "That's where you belong. In a stately home. Married, with corgies running around you and butlers and hunting guns. I am effectively white trash. Please don't sit there and kid yourself that you love me enough to want to live with me forever. You'd get sick of me in about three minutes." she sighed and put her arms around his neck, looking up at him with huge eyes. "I don't think I could bear it if you got sick of me. I wouldn't be able to live."  
  
He put his arms around her waist and held her close, resting his head against hers. "I could never get tired of you. Never. You're not white trash, and I hate the Elizabeth's and Lucia's and Rachel's. I want the Yolanda." She looked at him and sighed, her eyelashes brushing her cheeks as she closed her eyes.  
  
"Fine. Ok. If we're still best friends at the end of sixth form, and you can get it together to remember, and you can assure me that your dream will get somewhere, then I will consider marrying you. But," she said, seeing the over excited look in his eyes "and this is a big but, if I say no, you have to accept my answer, and not push me after that. You have to be content to be my best friend in the entire world and not my husband. So, it's now May. You have one and a half months to wait. Do you think you can do that without bringing up this issue until then?"  
  
"Yes. Ah, but, one last thing and then it never gets mentioned."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Close your eyes."  
  
"Ok, fine, whatever." She closed her eyes and he took her by the hand, holding her tightly and guiding her way. She felt them go down the street and enter a store. It was quiet and muted, with a sombre atmosphere. She heard him whisper something to someone, and there was a shuffling around before she was led over to a counter.  
  
"Ok, open your eyes and pick one." She opened her eyes and found herself faced with a jeweller's tray of engagement rings. She stifled a small gasp and her eyes sparkled with delight.  
  
"Oh my god... no, Stefan, you cant buy me a ring!" she hissed the last word, taken aback by her friends seriousness.  
  
"Well, lets just pick one anyway, ok?" he smiled at her and squeezed her hand gently, while she ran her eyes over the rows and rows of sparkling diamonds and precious stones.  
  
They debated for about an hour, each deciding to forsake their free afternoon periods in favour of the continuation of the search for the perfect ring. Eventually Yolanda decided. She picked a platinum band, with three emeralds cut diamonds in them, the centre diamond being slightly blue, and brilliantly beautiful.  
  
"Shit Stefan," she said, looking at the beautiful ring on her finger and wincing at the thought of how much this would cost. "You can't afford this, can you? Oh my god. It's a coloured diamond, it's going to cost buckets."  
  
"Hey, don't worry. My dad will be thrilled to hear that I wan to marry someone. He keeps asking why I haven't got engaged yet. He married my mother before he left school." He put his arms around her in a bear hug. "If he doesn't pay for the whole ring, he'll at least up my allowance until I can pay for it. Don't sweat it Yoll."  
  
Yolanda went through the service door to wait in another room for Stefan to organise payment plans with the sales assistant. As she sat on the grey waiting room sofa, looking at the sparkling piece of jewellery on her hand, she felt a pang of remorse. She bit her lip and studied her chipping nails. She didn't love Stefan, and she couldn't help feel that even allowing him to buy a returnable ring was leading him on. She thought about it for a minute, then pulled a pen and paper from her schoolbag. She scribbled a note and studied it for a bit before putting it on the table, pinned down by the red jewellers box. Then she got up, smoothed her skirt down and walked out the door, turning left at the next corner, towards her aunt's house. 


End file.
